Cox, George - Aryan Mythology Vol 2.pdf

ENDYMION AND TITHONOS. 31
sleep, is in substance all that poets or antiquarians tell us CHAP.
of; and even this is related by Pausanias with so many *._ ^ .
variations as to show that the myth, from its obvious solar
character, was too stubborn to be more than thinly disguised.
If Endymion heads an army, or dethrones a king, this is the
mere arbitrary and pointless fiction of a later age. The real
scene of the myth is the land of Latinos, not the Karian hill
or cave to which Pausanias made him migrate from Elis,
but that western region of the heavens where the wearied
sun finds a resting-place. 1 The word itself belongs to the
root which has produced the word Lethe, forgetfulness, as
well as the names of Leto and Leda, the mothers of Phoibos
and the Dioskouroi. The simplest form of the story is per-
haps that of Apollodoros, who merely says that Selene loved
him and that Zeus left him free to choose anything that he
might desire. His choice was an everlasting sleep, in which
he might remain youthful for ever. 2 His choice was wiser
than that of Eos (the morning or evening light), who ob-
tained for the beautiful Tithonos the gift of immortality
without asking for eternal youth ; a myth as transparent as
that of Endymion, for Eos, like lokaste, is not only the wife
but also the mother of Tithonos, who in one version is a son
of Laomedon the Hian king, in another of Kephalos, who
woos and sla} r s Prokris. The hidden chamber in which Eos
placed her decrepit husband is the Latmian hill, where
the more fortunate Endymion lies in his charmed sleep.
Endymion is in short, as his name denotes, simply the sun
setting opposite to the rising moon. Looking at the tale
by the light which philology and comparative mythology
have thus thrown upon it, we may think it incredible that
any have held it to be an esoteric method of describing early
1 An address of ' Ossian ' to the Set- Timidly raising their heads
ting Sun, which Mr. Campbell (iv. 150) To gaze on thee beauteous asleep,
pronounces to be a close translation of They witless have fled from thy side,
Gaelic, assumed to be older than 1730, Take thy sleep within thy cave,
vividly expresses the idea of this myth: Sun, and come back from sleep re-
Hast left the blue distance of heaven ?
Joicin g-
Sorrowless son of the gold-yellow hair ! Here we have not only the Latmian
Night's doorways are ready for thee, cave, but the idea which grew into the
Thy pavilion of peace in the Wesl myths of Memnon, Adonis, and Baldur.
The billows came slowly around, - i. 7, ».
To behold him of brightest hair,